


I'll Let You Put Me Back Together

by reneedanis



Series: We're My Favourite Mosaic [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clarke and Bellamy - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Forgive Me, I AM DRUNK, It's Hard and Nobody Understands, LMAO, Love, but good at having a guilt complex, but like, clarke and bellamy are both bad at feelings, damn u kno, does editted have two t's, im sorry im so drunk rn, im thinking of doing some mcu stuff after this bc fuck the mcu u kno, lowkey anxiety, my eyes are so dry, no matter what you ship that's just a fact, not editted, okay im done now sorry, respec, self doubt, soft, the whole emotional shebang internally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 15:37:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15464634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reneedanis/pseuds/reneedanis
Summary: A snap shot into Clarke And Bellamy's lives.





	I'll Let You Put Me Back Together

The thing with Bellamy is that he lives in routines. Being a guardian to his sister, a teacher, an old man at heart there are things he’s had to grow accustomed to for balance. The smooth pace of a familiar routine has been crucial to staying ahead, to keeping his sister. He’s good at keeping his head down and working hard, knows that he has – had to - in order to survive.

 

What he’s not good at is letting those things go. He’s had his hands gripped on the edge of a building for so long, has been too scared to relax in fear of plummeting to the ground. He’s older now, his sister out of college, has a partner and a house and dog everything, all the comforts she could ever want and he still hasn’t fully let all of the air out his lungs. He doesn’t really know the person he is without those parts of him working. There’s a cog missing out of this machine and it’s starting to sputter.

 

Clarke lives freely. Doesn’t understand the shackles of responsibility in the same way he does. She likes to colour outside the lines, likes to stick it to authority – has had the freedom to do so. They’ve lived different narratives, on parallel train tracks that never should have crossed. The universe has interesting ways of making people dance.

 

She talks him down from ledges constantly. Throws away his lists when he gets too clenched, opens the curtains, breaks open the windows, lets the air and sunlight into his room. Reminds him to let go sometimes, takes the reigns off him and massages the callouses that are burnt into his hands.

 

She likes to catch him unaware, seems to know the exact times he’s about to climb the mountain before an avalanche is going to hit. Swoops in with a new tv show or a lame joke or someone wrong on the internet. Throws him a lifesaver before his head sinks below the surface.

 

The white noise has been climbing in his ears for a few days. His shoulders have been aching under the weight of it all and he knows he could talk to Clarke about it, she’s great at listening to him. But the words are stuck to the sides of his throat, they’re throwing themselves against the front of his skull but he can’t bring himself to let them out. Doesn’t know what they’re going to sound like out loud.

 

Clarke’s out with Raven for the afternoon and the house is so quiet without her fluttering around him. He can hear every clock ticking, lets the silence fall heavily on the floor, and knows that everything is building to a head. His breathing is getting heavier, it’s echoing around him but he can’t slow it down.

 

There’s a constant thrum in his body that’s screaming to do something. That he should be working harder, that he needs to call his sister. He’s fingers scratch at his back without realising, there’s an itch he just can’t get.

 

His feet take him into the kitchen, breath getting stronger, louder. His hands are turning white, gripped against the edge of the sink.

 

The front door opens quietly but his eyes don’t lift above the stainless steel.

 

Clarke calls out for him, her voice threaded around a smile. There’s lightness around her that he can feel already but his breath isn’t slowing down. The avalanche is racing towards him and there isn’t a single thing he can do to stop it.

 

She rounds the corner, sees him hunched over the sink, breath filling the kitchen.

 

“Bell?”

 

Her voice rolls over his shoulders like salt water but he doesn’t turn around, lets the feel of her in the room melt the snow around his neck.

 

He feels her run a hand across his shoulder blades, down his arms, over his hands. She pries his fingers off the sink, intertwines them with hers instead. She presses her body into the tension in his back, feels the stone underneath her.

 

There’s energy pulsing off him like moonlight but she holds on through the current, lets the tide pull out into the horizon again. Waits for the ebbing to subside, the dust to settle, the quiet to defrost in the sunshine.

 

She releases the grip on him for a second, places a hand on his shoulder instead, pulls him round to face her. His gaze is locked on her toes, still with her shoes on.

 

They stand in silence, her hands locked between his again as she waits for the storm to pass. His forehead presses against her collarbone. He’s trying to match his breathing to hers; the easy rise and fall of it. He feels the stillness of the room again. Lets the light be yellow instead of blue, relaxes into the weight of her hands in his, the feel of her in front of him.

 

She moves to get her phone out of her pocket, starts up a song he’s heard around the hallways a thousand times before.

 

An easy smile falls across his face. She raises their joined hands above them, twirls herself around so she’s tucked under his chin. The beat fills the room slowly as she sways her hips in front of him. His fingertips trail up her waist, dragging the hem of her tee shirt with them before sliding down resting firmly on her hip. He brushes his lips against the pulse point on her neck, hardly touching the skin.

 

There are puddles on the floor from the aftermath, words stuck to the inside of his cheeks still but they can wait. She’s here and warm and real in front of him. She is candlelight in a power cut. She is sunflowers on the windowsill. She is his favourite shade of sunrise; the way that everything feels better in the morning.

 

He spins her round to face him, rests his forehead against. He lets her breaths flow through him, fills the gaps in his lungs.

 

Her body sways to the song, out of beat with the music and the lyrics somehow but she’s moving the way moonlight does on choppy water. Sure and bright against the edges. She keeps him here in the song, dancing in the kitchen light.

 

His hands rest easily in the small of her back, he lets his fingers brush against her skin. Anchors himself to her warmth.

 

She’s humming out of tune and the glow around them heightens.

 

His chin hooks over her shoulder; makes her press her body into his again, and arm winds around her waist.

 

The songs ends but they stay intertwined. Time washes over them like rain water and they stay together. There isn’t a part of him she hasn’t laid her fingers on, their dna is so dyed with the edges of each other, there are traces of her all over his skin.

 

She pulls away, meets his eyes, waits for a beat before shattering the quiet in the room.

 

“You out of your head yet?”

 

The silence lies in shards of broken glass on the floor. He knows his way around a broom, her – a dustpan. They clean up messes faster together.

 

His smile is soft, relaxed. He nods his head lazily, withholds the urge to sink into the crook of her neck.

 

“Just got too wrapped up in it all.” His voice is rough in the air, catches on his teeth a little.

 

“You’re a good brother and an even better person. You’re not letting anybody down. You deserve to give yourself a break. Everything that you have now you deserve to have.”

 

The words are always the same but they crash into him with the same force every time, knock him up the side of the head.

 

She’s pulsing through his blood stream. Her breath is in his lungs and his chest reaches out for her through his collarbone. She’s dog eared on all the parts of him he doesn’t want to touch.

 

Every time this happens there’s more of him that she lights up. She pulls him out of the darkness, lets the sun graze his skin, reminds him of now.

 

The kitchen light is warm and yellow. Her tee shirt is soft and worn. His smile is languid and easy. Her hair smells like coconut and he holds her tight against his body, lets their heart beats fall into sync.

 

When the air settles, he pulls back from her abruptly. Embarrassment falls over him like a cloak.

He clears his throat, takes a half step out of her space, feels heat rushing into his cheeks. His eyes refuse to meet hers, lets his eyes dance around the room not finding anything solid enough to land on.

 

The weight of her gaze on his face is sunlight in the late afternoon, all of the light with none of the heat.

 

She steps back into his space, brings her arms around his waist, nestles into his collarbone like she’s never been anywhere else but right next to his heartbeat. There are parts of him her fingers have only scratched but she reaches for them anyway. The chips on his shoulders leave indents on her skin so she’s started carrying duct tape, keeps them together when she’s threatening to be torn open.

 

The kitchen light can’t fix the parts of him that can’t forget letting his face slip underwater, can’t forget perpetually wet socks and old cereal. There are fires he has left burning that the breath in her lungs can’t extinguish. Not all of the broken pieces of him need to be put back together again.

 

He lets her press against him, grounds himself to the way her back is expanding and contacting as she breaths. She touches all the corners of the room in a way that’s tangible; she’s caught on the edge of his bottom lip.

 

He is here, in this room, watching the light pour off her like steam off hot coffee, like paint water in the sink, like water over the lip of a waterfall. The song starts again. Her lips curl against the exposed skin of his neck as she starts swaying her body to the music.

 

There are a lot of things he’s trying to forget. But there are new memories, better memories, that he’s desperate to remember, like a top 40 pop song and coconut waves under a flickering kitchen light. Being pulled back from a crumbling mountain ledge, out of ice-cold water, to be swathed in light, kissed lightly on the cheek.

 

She doesn’t speak but he hears her all the same.

 

‘Take off your jacket. Leave the bags at the door. Open up the windows. Dance with me in this yellow light and forget what it’s like fail, remember what it’s like to fall. I’m ready to catch all the pieces.’

**Author's Note:**

> hi i wrote a whole how they break up piece but i lost it so i have to re-write it but have this in the meantime - i'll do it tomorrow when it's not 1.05 am my time nd im druunk lmaoo sorry to disappoint but it's what im good at !!
> 
> the song they dance to in my head was 'dance to this' by troye sivan ft ariana grande bc it's a bop nd the video is too cute but i was inspired to write this by willow smith's song 'F Q - C #8' bc it has the lyric 'grab your neighbour's hand - just dance' which idk made me wana write a thing so i did this !!
> 
> anyways happy responsible drinking, imma try find my break up piece !!


End file.
